


her very own picture show

by Thegaygumballmachine



Category: Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (TV 2018)
Genre: AU, F/F, So very AU, human!aunties, just read it you’ll see, multichap (and it’s gonna be LONG), not gonna spoil it by overtagging this time, theyre not related in this one kids, trust me - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-18
Updated: 2019-03-18
Packaged: 2019-11-23 11:01:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18150989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thegaygumballmachine/pseuds/Thegaygumballmachine
Summary: Hilda is a waitress at a twenty four hour diner, struggling to make ends meet with a baby niece and dead brother.Zelda, a mysterious stranger that comes into her life at exactly the right time.A tale of love and war and everything in between. Rating may go up.(I’m really bad at summaries that don’t include quotes but I swear this is decent.)





	1. a prologue, of sorts

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lalalyds2](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lalalyds2/gifts).



> re: the dedication, this is for Lydia, who’s been listening to me ramble about Zelda belonging in noir since the very beginning.
> 
> (Thanks to hashtag-they-fucked for the beta!)

Hilda’s working a particularly grueling night shift when they first come to meet. 

It’s just about four; the clock reads half nine, but it’s been broken for upwards of a week, and the watch she’s taken to wearing works perfectly fine. The diner is all but empty, apart from herself and a single businessman in the corner, working on his third coffee and yesterday’s paper. The kitchen staff have all gone home long since. She’s wiping the counter and counting the minutes, and the man in the corner is counting out his change, and there are now only two hours, fifty-two minutes, and sixteen seconds between her and a scalding hot bath. 

The bell jingles in the way it always does, the way that seems charming until one is made to hear it continuously for eight hours straight, and heels are clicking dramatically against the linoleum, sharp and smooth at once. She takes a moment to gather herself, dusts off her skirt, and looks up to find an expensive redhead at the farthest stool to the right. 

She radiates class in all senses of the word. Rita Hayworth elegance with a touch of something dark in her smirk, she is a pinup personified, gold dress and matching gloves indicating a party that’s run too long to stomach. Hilda wonders briefly whether the boys down at the film lot know about her, and, if they don’t, whether she should tell them. Looking back, she would call herself stunned, but it’s more than that, because this woman is very clearly built to be captivating, and she is very clearly used to men looking at her this way. 

Of course, Hilda is very much not a man, but she chooses not to think about it. 

“Hello, love,” she says, once she’s collected her thoughts, “what can I get for you?”

Rita thumbs off her gloves and pulls a cigarette case from her purse. She looks up at the menu and puts one to her lips, lighter in hand, before she seems to reconsider.

“Do you mind terribly if I smoke?”

Normally, Hilda would. She abhors the smell of it. Still, strangely, she finds herself shaking her head, and Rita sighs, relieved, and lights up.

——

She has a smoker’s voice. It’s low and lusty and, really, she is nothing short of ethereal. How she’s come to a dingy little diner in Lower Manhattan (how she’s come to Lower Manhattan at all, in fact) is an utter mystery to Hilda, but she can’t say she isn’t glad of the company. 

The man in the corner has finished his coffee. She doubts he tips well, but she doesn’t quite care. 

“I’ll have a black coffee,” says Rita, having taken two drags and courteously exhaled away from Hilda’s face, “and cream in a cup on the side, if you please.”

“Of course.”

She has never been so conscious of how she moves as she is now — as Ambrose puts it, she ‘putters about’ behind the counter. To him, it’s endearing, but she very much doubts it will look that way in the face of this woman’s grace. It doesn’t occur to her to wonder why she cares so much. 

There’s a little coffee left over from the last pot, but the cream on the side takes some doing; they don’t serve it like that, and they don’t have much of anything that would work to do so. Hilda, ever the quick thinker, digs up a bowl that’s typically meant for measuring spices.

Rita takes it without complaint, stirs it in at a slow, contemplative pace with her free hand. For a time, she simply holds it, clearly relishing in the warmth. By the time she is actually ready to drink it, her cigarette is more than half gone. She stubs it on a napkin and sips at the coffee with unfocused eyes, lost in her head. 

Hilda would be content to simply watch her, but there are so many questions building, and she yearns to know more. For as long as she can, she fiddles with her skirt, the abrasive teal distracting her for no more than a few seconds —precisely thirteen, if her watch is indeed to be trusted— before she is drawn to look up again.

“So,” she ventures, tentative, and Rita meets her eye with an encouraging half smile, “what’s keeping you out so late?”

——

She’s resting her arms on the counter, leaning on them, and Rita is thinking on her answer, which comes out far less complicated than Hilda might expect in the end.

“Work. Much like yourself,” —she leans in to check Hilda’s nametag— “Hilda.”

Hilda laughs, ducks her head; she can’t imagine the two are at all comparable, when how Rita spends her days is so visibly glamorous. 

“What do you do, then? Are you some kind of actress?”

Rita is the one to laugh at that, and it’s a full, sweet sound, one that lends a peachy blush to Hilda’s cheeks. 

“No, no. You flatter me. I…”

She trails off, as if struggling to remember something just out of reach. 

“Well, as a matter of fact, I write.”

——

Hilda considers, turns it over in her head. 

“Novels?”

Of all the idiotic questions. She curses herself, but Rita’s eyes twinkle prettily all the same.

“Yes.”

“How could that possibly keep you out ‘till four in the morning in  _ that _ ?”

She only realizes how unbearably rude that must seem once she’s already said it, and she shakes her head at herself, tugging on the edge of her apron and avoiding Rita’s piercing gaze. She is generally much more sociable than this, and she doesn’t know whether it’s the lateness of the hour or the curl to this mystery woman’s hair, but she’s got next to no filter left.

That husky voice washes over her again, much like the earlier smoke but far more pleasant in delivery, and she follows the curve of Rita’s arm as it tucks her hair out of her line of sight.

“Oh, that’s not what I meant. There was a… soirée, of sorts, in a friend’s honor. He insisted that I be there. Terribly droll affair. Whatever else it may have been, it certainly felt like work to me.”

She tosses back the last dregs of her coffee like it’s alcohol, and Hilda makes to pour more, but a hand on her wrist stops her before she can. 

“No,” says Rita, “thank you. I really should be going.”

“Oh,” says Hilda, and she can feel her face falling, no matter how she tries to mask it, “alright.”

Rita smiles at her one last time, and it’s peppermint candy, red and white and such a treat as she pulls forty cents in dimes from her purse and sets them nonchalantly on the counter.

“I’m Zelda, by the way. This has been lovely.”

Neither of them comment on how much it is, how much  _ too much  _ it is. It is not an accident, and Hilda is not a fool. 

“Thank you,” she whispers, with all its varied meanings, and Zelda (not Rita, though they are much the same) nods almost imperceptibly, steps down from the stool, and slinks away into the night, quickly as she came.   
  
  
  
  



	2. pearls and other luxuries

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been so long, but this fic is still my child, and I still love it with the very depths of my being.  
> Thank you to anyone who is still interested and/or still willing to follow along on this little journey!

The baby is crying, Ambrose is smoking on the fire escape, and Hilda is very, very late for work. 

It’s the sort of day that’s horrendously bad before it’s even begun. Her alarm’s been set wrong and it goes off an hour later than it’s meant to; she’s scrambling the moment she wakes up, frantic energy cording up her limbs and sending anything but familiar, blessed routine to the back of her mind. 

It isn’t the first time she’s taken from the work pantry for breakfast, and it probably won’t be the last. 

(At least the bread is good _._ They source it from Mary’s Place down the road, and, by god, that woman knows what she’s doing.)

There’s a flinty snow falling outside, frosting over the windowpanes and taking visibility to a miserable low. It’s all very dark and very gloomy as she curses through a too-cold shower and gives a haphazard attempt at makeup, but in the end, she’s only about twenty minutes behind. 

Sabrina needs fed, but Hilda has neither the wherewithal nor the time to do it now, so she wails tirelessly in the background, sure to wake the rest of the building if she keeps on. The sofa and coffee table are covered in Ambrose’s assorted possessions; books, clothes, some food remains. She gives a weary sigh and tries not to get mascara on her nose, running her thumb along exposed brick with an air of quiet resentment.

“Make her shut up,” shouts Ambrose, and how he can stand to be out there in this cold she will never know, but she has half a mind to push him down the stairs. 

“You’ll have to do it,” she shouts back, muffled through gritted teeth and pink lipstick. “I’m already late.”

_“Auntie.”_

“I’ll be back at five.”

She tries and fails to inject cheer into her voice as she gathers up her handbag, which, coincidentally, is covered in a mystery powder that clashes horribly with its color. “Have that mess cleaned up by then, won’t you?”

A put-upon groan is the only reply she gets.

She knows he loves his half-sister, but taking care of her is, as he so baldly puts it, the bane of his existence. 

She really ought to make him pay rent. 

——

On the ten minute walk through the sludge, she finds herself thinking about Zelda. 

It isn’t exactly intentional, but it’s hard not to at times. Every so often, she’ll be doing the dishes, or reading a book, or Ambrose will be smoking his horrible cheap cigars, and she will be reminded of that night, then the three other nights since, and will invariably lose her train of thought. 

Zelda is a creature of habit. Every time she’s come to the diner, she’s done it between three and four a.m. on a Wednesday, ordered a coffee with cream, and read the obituaries in the day’s paper. Among other things, Hilda has since learned that she writes specifically crime novels, had a sister once, and spends her free time stargazing on her terrace.

Today, a Monday, she is at the counter when Hilda arrives, sporting a button up dress with flared collar and, if Hilda is to judge it, quite a daring neckline.

(Speak of the devil and all that. She’s flagrant sin dressed up in red; the association is almost too easy.)

She hasn’t ordered yet, hasn’t even opened her paper yet. It is a welcome sight, if strange, and Hilda smiles at the back of her head for an indeterminate amount of time, admiring the wave of her hair in the light. It’s always seemed auburn before, but that isn’t right, not now; with the sun, it is rose gold, a delicate, complicated color, and it shifts with her every movement. 

Hilda shakes herself, takes a steadying breath, and makes for the counter, the morning’s irritations already forgotten. 

“Good morning,” she greets, less sweet than saccharine, and tries not to grimace. “You’re up early.”

Zelda looks up, and her brow arches in incredulity, unable to keep a touch of a smile from her lips at Hilda’s exuberance. She fingers the string of pearls at her neck and gives Hilda an obvious, lingering once-over. 

“Or late,” she drawls, “depending on who you ask.”

——

There’s something about Zelda, something unnamable and really quite impossible, that feels as if she’s looking straight through Hilda, beyond any personal affectations and right into the core of her. Her eyes are piercing in a vaguely familiar way, and there’s an itch there, right at the back of Hilda’s mind.

She’s watching Hilda now with mild amusement, and Hilda’s sure it’s because she can’t keep herself from straying to look at that damn neckline, over and over again. 

It’s a scandal waiting to happen, she tells herself. That’s why she looks. It’s _too much._

(It’s not that she’s trying to commit the freckle that rests at the precise middle of Zelda’s sternum to memory — that’s not it at all. She couldn’t care less about that.

She doesn’t even know why she’s noticed it at all, other than just because it’s _there._ )

“Your usual, then?"

“Mhm.”

She’s working her way through the paper now, whose headline reads _ITALY SURRENDERS!_ in big bold letters. Her concentration is absolute, with a furrowed brow and set jaw to show for it, and Hilda smiles again, a softer, smaller thing, and goes to fetch her coffee.

——

The morning rush is winding down at long last. Hilda and the new girl, Shirley Jackson, are the only ones working today, and it’s some kind of fresh hell; Shirley is taking more ‘smoke breaks’ than she’s actually working, and her tables are all on Hilda’s back about it, and she’s already so tired she could drop. 

She almost forgets that Zelda’s on the far left stool, but finds that she can’t quite; there’s always a little flash of red in her periphery, a hum or sigh or tiny, dainty cough, before she can actually manage it. 

When she returns to the counter, Zelda is writing in a little black notebook with the paper spread out in front of her, mired in that same unbreakable focus. 

“Looking for inspiration, hm?”

Zelda is far too poised to physically jolt at such an intrusion, but her shoulders and arms tense with it before she makes it out. When she looks up and into Hilda’s eyes, she visibly relaxes. 

“That’s right,” she says, low and smooth. “They’ve got a woman in here who murdered her husband and tried to steal their girl away to California. A crime of passion, they call it.”

Hilda puts two plates and a mug into the sink and makes to wash them up, if only to give the impression of work. Shirley’s eyeing her from the front window, even as she taps out yet another cigarette onto the pavement.

“And what do you call it?”

“Desperate. Afraid. They’re saying he had a mistress, which I do believe to be true, but I think she worried more about what could happen to the child.”

She’s staring at her notes, contemplative, and Hilda wonders if she notices how intently Hilda’s staring at _her_. 

“He’s a very wealthy man, but no one actually knows how. According to this he owns a successful restaurant chain. If that were true, I’d have expected to hear his name before today.”

She closes the paper, makes a final note, and takes her purse out onto the counter. Hilda takes a moment to process, to put it together, then says, very quietly:

“You’re brilliant, you are.”

Zelda looks up, hands Hilda her customary forty cents, and smirks conspiratorially.

“I know.”

——

Zelda comes in twice more that week. 

The first time is just before Hilda’s shift ends. The second, just after it begins. It’s more sporadic than it was, but it still has its patterns. 

(She deals in extremes, opposites. Maybe that’s why she’s taken to Hilda.)

It’s a highlight, in a very literal way: the room brightens when Zelda’s in it, lends an element of interest to a monotony that would otherwise be, and has in fact been before, entirely crushing. Hilda doesn’t often read the paper, herself, but Zelda’s renditions of stories she would normally find dull and unimpressive are too compelling to resist.

She weaves rich, deep imagery like so much cloth, creating other worlds in the simplest of phrases. Hilda could listen to her talk for hours on end and believe every word, no matter what she chose to say. 

They don’t talk much, personally.

Unless it’s about the current article and, sometimes, the weather, Zelda sits in silence that’s just this side of companionable and Hilda works her tables. Zelda only seems to want to divulge the details of her life under the cover of darkness, for which Hilda can’t blame her; it’s quieter, more intimate, those times, and she finds herself missing it. 

(Though, like all trends, this one does break eventually.)

——

“Tell me about yourself,” says Zelda, lazy and dreamy over a bowl of tomato soup. Hilda’s slowly been convincing her to eat when she comes in, through a myriad of techniques from subtle wheedling to outright begging (because anyone that thin cannot be fed well, whether for lack of food or lack of _good_ food, and she has a sneaking suspicion that it’s the latter in Zelda’s case), and she’s finally given in, though she will fight tooth and nail not to admit that Hilda’s right.

“I’m afraid I’m not that interesting, really.”

Not to someone like Zelda anyway, with her intrigue and fancy dresses. She keeps her eyes to the counter, which she’s working on wiping down, and she really should send Zelda out before it gets too long after closing, but she can’t seem to turn her away. 

“I’ve never met an uninteresting person.”

She says it with startling conviction, and Hilda fights herself on a flush, meeting her eyes to find a gentle, if firm, curiosity in them. 

“Well,” she says, draws it out, “I grew up an hour out from London. My mum wanted me to be like her when I grew up, and I didn’t. We had a cat… well, the cat came ‘round every other night for food and we called him ours.”

This comes with a little laugh, and she doesn’t know which one of them made it, but it bolsters her all the same. 

“I like green, and biscuits over cakes, and summer over winter… I don’t know, what do you want to hear?”

Zelda considers, tilts her head, comes to say;

“Why did you move here?”

Her smile goes wan, though she tries to hide it. She turns, ostensibly to deposit the rag into its proper place but also to gather her wits, and thinks on how much truth to tell. 

“My brother,” she says.

“I didn’t know you had a brother,” says Zelda, a smile forming at the edges of her lips. 

“I… _did_ ,” says Hilda. It’s flat, almost too quiet. 

There’s a beat of silence. Zelda’s spoon scrapes against the edge of the bowl. She takes it in, works her response out before she makes it. 

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Everyone always is.”

Everything around her is completely spotless, but she goes on cleaning anyway, fluttering about the space until there is absolutely nothing left to fiddle with or move. 

When she looks up, Zelda is gone. 

——

They don’t talk much, personally.

(Hilda actually prefers it that way.)


End file.
